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General discussion

Beta is BETA!!!!!!!

Mar 10, 2006 8:46AM PST

Ok, so I smelled a stinking contradiction today by criticizing Google for keeping the word BETA on their stuff for too long. Why? Because MOST people would say that Gmail no longer belongs in beta, so the word should have gone off a long time ago, right? Well guess what...

THE GUY LOST HIS STUFF THROUGH GMAIL. Therefore proving Gmail still has a few bugs to be worked out and STILL deserves the beta label.

So don't go off and criticize Google for being conservative (shudder) with their BETA label until they feel good and comfortable removing it. Because obviously, problems still need to be squashed.

-Kevin S

Discussion is locked

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oh kevin...

kevin, kevin, kevin.
he's one person who lost his stuff. it's not like 500 people lost their stuff. gmail does not deserve to be in beta, and google should have done more to help him.

i stand by saying that beta is a scapegoat at this point.

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Call me.. Google Man!!
Mar 10, 2006 9:15AM PST

Good lord, when did I become such a Google evangelist? Happy

I understand your point about the prolonged use of the beta label but seriously, in a country as litigious as the United States, you have to understand their paranoia on these things. Especially given the fact that somebody did actually lose their data with it.

I think warning labels on lawnmowers and powersaws is also overkill and nobody really pays attention to them (because they should know better) but it's a warning that must be there in a country full of lazy idiots looking for the easy way to make a buck.

-Kevin S.

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I agree in part
Mar 10, 2006 12:14PM PST

I agree with the lazy idiots, and watch out for yourself.

However I think it is true that Google undersells its beta-ness. They could do more to set off the beta products from the real products. Right now they make the beta products feel too real.

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Beta definition changed long before Google
Mar 13, 2006 2:59AM PST

Software companies for years have been selling "Beta" products as "Final" products. Google should be GIVEN CREDIT for bringing the term Beta back to what it really should be:

"Here is our product, use with caution because not all of the bugs have been worked out."

Google should not be derided for calling their not-yet-rock-solid products beta. Software companies shipping "Final" bug-filled products deserve the criticism. Google may have a higher standard and I applaud them for that. And if they really are just "covering their a$$es" because of this litigious nation of ours, who can POSSIBLY blame them??

I move on a lot of opinions but I'm not budging on this one. Happy

-Kevin S.

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No, no.... call ME Google Man!
Mar 10, 2006 4:04PM PST
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I bow to the power of Your Geekness.
Mar 10, 2006 4:43PM PST

Good God, Andrew!! I went to that link and my eyes glazed over at the point size, prolific amount of writing in each blog and the subject matter. I had flashbacks of cracking open a collegiate level calculus textbook my first year of college when I actually deluded myself into believing I might become an engineer.

I mined the words: Open Source Evolution, Hack the Genome, balkanization of basic biolgical functions, common biological functions registry, and SQL parser within the first 8 inches of text. When I came to, I realized, I haven't the right to call myself "Google Man." I must be relegated to trusty side-kick. It is now YOUR job to give me a name and true purpose in life for serving the Google Overlord.

Or... maybe it's just the wine and late hour...

-Kevin S.

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Its not a warning, its a cop out.
Mar 11, 2006 1:23AM PST

If you're going to make your service very public and very popular, then it shouldn't be a beta.


Beta's, last time I checked, usually aren't for mass-distribution.

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(NT) (NT) Edit: "Betas" not "Beta's"
Mar 11, 2006 1:24AM PST
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google need to know what beta means
Mar 11, 2006 7:52AM PST

i use flikr and gmail but the thing is i use my yahoo account like this guy uses his gmail. I store lots of info like login to bank and credit card sites in there as well as me resume and if yohoo did that i dont know what i would do. i think that molly is right google needs to stop using the word beta on every dam think it makes or if they are going to use the word actually mean it and when its out of beta remove it for god sacks you are going to be a software company start acting like one.

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collective "rears"
Mar 10, 2006 9:15AM PST

...and if that is what it takes for Google to cover their rear (or collective "rears"), then that's what they're going to do. It's not illegal, is it?

I'm not saying it's "right" or "wrong" or ethical or inethical - but it's a disclaimer nonetheless, is it not?

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Agree w/ Veronica...
Mar 11, 2006 5:23AM PST

If this were a beta, it would mean that everyone using GMail is a beta tester. Do you feel like a tester? I know I don't, and Google does not in any way remind people who sign up that they are using a "beta" product. In fact they make it sound just like any other commercial product...


Here, for reference, are the two emails that appear in every new GMail account:

--------------
Gmail is different. Here's what you need to know.

Auto-save, keyboard shortcuts, customized addresses and more. Sound cool? We think so too. Welcome to Gmail.

We hope this email will help you learn about some of the features that make Gmail unique. To get started, you may want to:

* Check out the Gmail Tour in our Getting Started section.
* Import your contacts to Gmail from Yahoo! Mail, Outlook, Hotmail and others.
* Visit our Help Center to learn about Gmail's features, like free POP access.

Gmail also works great with other Google products like Desktop for offline searching, Picasa for sending your pictures, and Google Talk for making free calls and sending instant messages to your friends.

As you're using Gmail, you might notice that there aren't any large, blinking, irrelevant ads. That's because we only show small text ads that are matched by computers and designed to be relevant to the messages you're viewing.

Users have often told us that the more they use Gmail, the more they discover its added benefits. So go ahead and give Gmail a try. We'll keep working on making Gmail the best email service around. Thanks for joining us for the ride. We hope you'll enjoy Google's approach to email.

Thanks,

The Gmail Team

P.S. You can sign in to your account any time by visiting http://mail.google.com

-----------------

It's easy to switch to Gmail!

Did you know that Gmail was voted #2 in PC World's Top 100 products of 2005, right after Firefox? Why wouldn't you want to switch? Well, because it can be a pain to switch to a new email address. We know.

But, it doesn't have to be. We want to make it easier for you. So, we've created a new switching guide to make the transition easier. The guide covers how to:

* Import your contacts into Gmail
* Announce your new address
* Remind friends that you've changed addresses
* Still use your old address to send mail

There's even personalized help for switching from the email service you no longer care to use. But if you're not ready now, we understand. Play around with Gmail for awhile. Send and receive some messages. We think you'll like it (you might miss all that spam, though). And, when you're ready, the switching guide is in our Help Center.

Change is good. It can be easy too.

Thanks,

The Gmail Team

-----------------


If Google is promoting GMail as a product that's better than the competition, doesn't mention the "beta", and encourages people to switch... they clearly don't think it's a beta either.

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gone as in forever?
Mar 10, 2006 9:17AM PST

Sorry to hear that. I'm surprised they don't have backups.
Where I work, networked drives & folders are always appearing & disappearing as they keep rearranging network topologies, but I can't recall the last time anything vanished permanently. Too bad there wasn't a GDisk to back up the GMail. Happy
btw - I access GMail thru POP3 on my Suse box @ home so unless Thunderbird crashes ...and it has... I have a locally stored copy of my GMail correspondence.

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Thunderbird?
Mar 10, 2006 9:31AM PST

Named for the car, the motorcycle or the Native American totem?

-Kevin S.

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Beta Bums
Mar 10, 2006 11:47AM PST

Just ditch the beta label and cover your rear with the terms of service. Yahoo and Microsoft don't have liability with their email services.

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Terms of serivice

If google put "no liability" in the terms of serice, they have no excuse for the bug but can still say "we're sorry, that sucks for you." All the blame for the problem falls on the company making the company look like a jerk.

"Beta" still lets them say "sorry, that sucks for you" but puts some of the blame back on the consumer because "you should have known better."

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Privacy
Mar 11, 2006 1:10AM PST

I'm sure when gmail first came out one of the many big privacy concerns people had was that your email is still stored on their servers even if you delete them, (I can't remember the source but I will have a look round tonight), I'm pretty certain Google's response was that the files stay on their servers so long because of the way the files are duplicated and stored on lots of different servers and it takes a while to sync them.

If they are duplicated so many times why can't they recover them?

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Beta is Beta I agree
Mar 11, 2006 4:32AM PST

I do not understand why people expect "BETA" products to work perfectly when non-BETA do not.

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Expectations
Mar 12, 2006 6:59AM PST

I think that expectations are raised when a product is released and otherwise supported. If Web 2.0-type products had to be packaged and sold in stores, you better believe the companies wouldn't waste their time with the ambiguity of defining "beta" for the public (and their internal crack legal squad).

I suppose Beta fever will subside a bit when the Terms of Service agreements start including a surgeon general type warning. "Using web apps that do not reside on your hard drive beyond a cookie or two may result in data loss and/or complete hosing of your personal info."

- Stewart